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The Great Aliyah to Israel by the Disciples of the Vilna Gaon
Comparative Analysis of the Great Aliyah of the Disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna with the Great Advent Awakening for the Lost Tribes of Israel
Part One
“The Great Aliyah in Judaism by the Disciples of the Vilna Gaon to Jerusalem”
Topics
1840 - Jerusalem was Ready for Judah’s Aliyah and Lost Israel was Ready to be Awakened
Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (The Vilna Gaon) – 1720-1797
The Shabbatean Heresy of Shabbatai Tzevi
Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri – “The Messiah has Come”
Vilna Gaon – “Redemption is a Gradual Process (Beitah)”
1808 - The Great Aliyah by the Disciples of the Vilna Gaon
1700 – The Aborted Aliyah of the Ashkenazi Jews with Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid
1830 – Settling in the Land of Israel
The Churvah – The Jewish Synagogue by Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid
The Hurva Reconstructed – the Final Redemption
Throughout the centuries, sages, theologians, and religious historians have sought to define the guiding hand of the Almighty. This guidance was usually sought within one’s own personal religious community whether Jewish or Christian. Rarely does a seminal article open the spectrum with the penetrating laser into the hand of the G-d of Israel, and such was the recent article titled, “Two Hundred Years in Eretz Yisrael: The Seminal Aliyah of the Talmidei HaGra (1808-1810)” written by Dr. Arie Morgenstern, a senior fellow researcher of messianic movements in the 18th and 19th centuries at the Shalem Center. It was translated by Yocheved Lavon and posted online by the Jewish Action Online, the Magazine of the Orthodox Union in the Spring of 2009.
This article opened up the divided streams of Divine Interaction between the Jewish people on the continent of Europe and the Lost Tribes of Israel in Great Britain and Britain’s newest colony of America in the eastern seaboard of the United States during the First and the Second Great Awakenings. Both of these great religions and the nations which they represented would become major global religious and political powers in the era before the coming of the Messiah. Both of them were being nudged by the Divine in an “awakening” to their purpose and role at the time of the end.
BibleSearchers
tackled this dual prophetic fulfillment back in the year of 2005,
in a lecture and subsequent article titled, “The
Wilderness Sanctuary – How G-d speaks to the Saints at the Time of the End”
but the historical resources were quite limited. The best paralleled
historical relationships we could find in the “finger of the Divine”
guiding both the Christians and the Jews on two sides of the
Atlantic Ocean was the parallel between the Second Great Awakening
and the rise of Millerite Movement in the 1830s to the 1840s when the Christian
Protestant denominations in the newly infant and budding United States
were only coming into their own. As written:
The City of Jerusalem – Painting by David Roberts (1850)
BibleSearchers Reflections – “They were only 68 years after the Signing of the Declaration of Independence (1776), 61 years after the end of American Revolution with Great Britain (1783). Americans were still in turmoil over the French Revolutionary War fought from 1792 to 1802 and the Napoleonic Wars that raged over Europe from 1803 to 1815. All of these geo-political events significantly affected Americans, especially those with families on the continent of Europe.
October 22, 1844 was only 29 years after the completion of the War of 1812 in which the winds of war and foreign oppression affected Americans especially along the Canadian border, the Chesapeake Bay region and along the Gulf of Mexico. The British just were not willing to get off of our land, meddling in our relationship with the French speaking Canadians, inciting the native Indian populations to not support the American government and their unwillingness to sign commercial agreements favorable to the United States. Last October 22, 2004, the descendants of the believers in the Great Advent Movement in 1844 marked their 160th anniversary. There was scarcely a whimper was heard around the world.
That day, so long ago, was a revolutionary mark in the history of Christianity. As our religious forefathers looked over the landscape of religious life in America and around the world (we were a global nation) there was no one, no religious denomination not even the Jews who believed in the literal return of the Moschiach of Yisra’el (Messiah of Israel). The Jews have had over 50 “false messiahs” since the day of Yahshua HaNotzri’s (Jesus the Nazarene) death.
In that day, Hebrew was virtually a dead language. In 1840 there were only 15,000 Jews in the United States. What about Jerusalem? This city of such fame and legendary importance in the ancient world was but a desert wasteland with a trash heap of ancient ruins. In the year 1840, there were only about 5,000 Jews in Jerusalem. This was a huge population because the British were making great effort to import Jewish people into the land over the prior 12 years when there were only 550 Jews living in the city.
And yet, the early Millerites, named after William Miller, had the audacity to race up and down the border of the eastern coast of the United States, (that is all that there was) in a wave of religious fervor and preach the message that Jesus was coming back to this earth. He was coming literally, every eye would see it. Redemption was to be a physical event. Wow! What a revolutionary idea! For 1800 hundred years Christians had learned to believe that Jesus had already come. He was living in our hearts. We were in the millennial kingdom and human life was getting better and better. Give them a break, this was evidence based Christianity. The kingdom of heaven was becoming a virtual reality on earth. The city of god was not Jerusalem, but the glorious city of Rome. All major denominations had an apostolic succession imbedded in their denominations for this is what made a denomination important.
Let us listen to William Miller as he pounded the pulpits of New England. Sixteen lectures on Biblical prophecy. Three hundred pages of sermon texts in two weeks. Joshua V. Himes left us this passage on apostolic succession in his book, The Brief History of William Miller (1853).
Joseph V. Himes - ‘The Catholics say it was set up in the days of the Roman Caesars, and thus claim for the Pope St Peter’s chair and the kingdom: that to the Bishop of Rome were the keys of this kingdom given at the demise of St. Peter, and that the popes have been the successor and earthly head of this kingdom ever since.
The Baptist writers, many of them say the same, and claim a descent from the apostles for the Baptist Church, - making the church what the Catholics do the pope, --and try to show a regular succession of the church, as the Catholics do their popes. They also claim believers’ baptism (immersion) as an initiatory rite into the kingdom and that none are citizens of this kingdom until they comply with this requisition.
The Episcopalians or some of them claim this same kingdom to have been set up in the days of the kings of England, and, therefore, the kings or queens of England are the accredited head of the episcopacy, and rulers over the visible church.
The Presbyterians say it was set up in the days of Luther, among the German kings; the Quakers, in the days of Fox; the Methodist, in the days of Wesley; the Shakers, in the days of Ann Lee and the Mormons by Joseph Smith….All writers seemed determined to have an earthly kingdom, and an earthly head to that kingdom. …..This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, and devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work….And now permit me to show that this kingdom is neither ‘earthly, sensual, nor devilish: (Joseph V. Himes, A Brief History of William Miller, Adventist Christian Publishing Assn, 1853, Review and Herald Publishing Assn, Washington, DC, reprint 1915)
All Christianity was stuck in a self-absorbing time tunnel. The “fullness of the gentiles” was about to be over. Noah was given 120 years to warn this planet earth. We have been given an additional 40 years, the same as the unbelieving Israelites were given before they could cross into the Promised Land.
In the mid-1830 to the mid 1840’s, the Millerites went from town to town proclaiming three messages. The first message”
Revelation 1:7 – “Behold, He (Messiah) is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him...”
That was the literal message. The literal textual exegesis finished the text; “even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of (Israel) on the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.
The second message went out:
Revelation 18:4 – “And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people…”
This was a literal message and the literal exegesis finished the text; “lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.
The third message that the Millerites cried out was:
Revelation 14:7 – “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth – to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people – saying with a loud voice, “Fear G-d and give glory to Him, for the hour of G-d’s judgment is come.”
“Behold He is coming with clouds and every eye will see him”, “Come out of her My people” and “The hour of G-d’s judgment is come.” These were the messages of the Great Awakening.”
Yet, the imprint appeared to be there, the motive, the intent, and the physical and spiritual awakening had to wait another four years before it could be revealed with greater depth and insight. Both the Jewish people and their Lost Cousins of the House of Israel living in the United States and Great Britain also appeared to be coming into a spiritual renaissance; theologically, spiritual, and mystically with all its passion and fervor. Yet, the years of the early 1840s appeared to be an elusive quest. All we could find of any historical trends beginning with the great aliyah in the mid to late 19th century was the historical stage set by Paul Johnson, in his remarkable book, “The History of the Jews”:
BibleSearchers Reflections – “And then it happened. It was February, 1840 in Damascus Syria. A Capuchin friar and his servant were killed in the city of Damascus and that day burned in the hearts of Jews around the world. It became one of the most pivotal days in Jewish history called the “Damascus Affair”. Immediately and abruptly the medieval blood libel was resurrected. The local Jews were charged with the murder of the friar so that the Jews could use his blood in the preparation of their Passover Seders.
The Turkish Christian community was swift and brutal in their investigation. The Jewish males were rounded up and tortured until a Jewish barber, Solomon Negrin under torture confessed and named others, who confessed and named others and on and on and on. Sixty three Jewish children “held as hostages until their mothers revealed the hiding-place of the blood.” (Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, p. 322)
The Jewish mind was never the same after that. “The Time of their Judgment had come”
1840 - Jerusalem was Ready for Judah’s Aliyah and Lost Israel was Ready to be Awakened
After 1840,
the call to return to the land of Israel kept getting louder and louder
until a hundred years later, out of the
ashes of the Holocaust
they finally
listened to their G-d. After 1840, the call to
return back to the Torah given to their Jewish forefathers kept
getting louder and louder until the authentic orthodox follower of
the G-d of Israel became a forceful entity in the life of the
Jewish people. They were needed to pave the pathway for the coming
of the messiah.
It was important that the “Land” must be prepared for the Messiah’s arrival. Jerusalem and Zion must also be prepared and ready. They were soon to become a beacon, a lighthouse near the stormy sea, for the gentiles and their lost brethren, the “Lost Tribes of the House of Israel” to find in their future aliyah (return to Israel). “The Time of their HaShem’s (G-d of Israel’s) Judgment had now come.”
The research for the clues to the Jewish Awakening in the early 19th century met with only minimal success until three months later, after the arrival of the new messianic American presidency of the Islamic born and trained Barak Hussein Obama in May 2009. After researching and writing the series of articles titled, “The Jewish Mission to Prepare the Homeland for the Return of Ephraim and the Lost Tribes of Israel,” a greater realization about the Return of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel was returning with greater clarity.
It was here that we learned that one of the greatest unifying themes of the biblical prophets was the story of the Lost Tribes of Israel and their prophetic return also to the Land of Israel. They were to be restored in unity as the “Sticks of Joseph and Judah” (Ezekiel 37) into the United Monarchy of the Greater Israel that would now be ruled by the Jewish Maschiah ben Dovid (Messiah son of David).
This prophetic theme was a story of rebellion, and rejection of the Divine by the Northern Kingdom of Israel, their exile and deportation to Khurasan in Northern Iran, Eastern Afghanistan, and Western Pakistan, their lost identity as they assimilated into the nations of the world as they “wandered” across the landscape of Eurasia to Europe. Yet the prophets were emphatic that G-d was always there watching over them, and though they defamed the name of G-d, He will redeem them for one purpose only; to honor His Holy Name.
We also learned that it was inconceivable to believe in a Sovereign G-d of the Universes that rejected His own people whom He had made a covenant with by the honor of His holy name, and then abandon them to exile forever and still be a “Loving G-d”. Did He not guarantee that even though His chosen ones were evil, He was a G-d of honor and integrity, and will honor His holy covenant?
Here was a love story of the immense compassion of G-d, who not only waits for His errant children, but prepares a pathway for their recovery and redemption. He sent to this planet earth His own Messiah, the very manifestation of Himself in human flesh, who was sent on a “Jewish Mission” to prepare the final Homeland for the Return of the Tribe of Ephraim and the Lost Tribes of Israel.”
Here we could finally see the historical linkage between the resurrection of Messianism in Christianity in the 1830s to the 1840s and the resurrection of the final reality of aliyah by returning to their homeland in the land of Israel. We could see the historical reality now beginning with the divine imprint for in the early 19th century when the finger the Master Designer was awakening the Tribes of Israel, especially the Tribe of Manasseh in the United States of America and the Tribe of Ephraim in Great Britain while at the same time He also was awakening the House of Judah still living in exile on the continent of Europe.
The sons of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim were awakening to a reality that the pivotal concepts of restoration and redemption had to do with the Messiah of Israel and not with institutions that create allegiance to themselves instead of the G-d of Israel. The Lost Israelites of the Tribe of Ephraim, at that time, were the rulers of the British Empire under the reign of a Davidian Princess of the House of King David, Queen Victoria (1837-1901) who became the longest reigning ruler ever in the history of the ruling royalty on the Isle of Britannia. At that same time the Orthodox Jews were awakening to their prophetic reality in 1840 that the time had come to return, repopulate, and become the dominate geo-political force in the Land of Israel in preparation for the return of the Messiah.
Was it also not remarkable, that Queen Victoria was served twice (1868 and 1874) as the Prime Minister of the Conservative Party by her personal friend and counselor, the Sir Benjamin Disraeli who was the only Jewish Prime Minister in British history when the Jewish disciples of the Gra, the famed Vilna Gaon of Lithuania, were securing a foothold in the Land of Israel and Jerusalem?
Was it a coincidence that a Sir Moses Haim Montefiore was elected as the Sheriff of London and became one of the most powerful men in Britain when he was knighted in 1837 by Queen Victoria? Was it just a historical footnote that Sir Montefiore was Jewish and married to a Judith Cohen whose sister was married to Sir Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777-1836), the founder of the Federal Reserve Bank in America who was of the British Rothschild dynastic family and the fourth son of the Rothschild Patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), who wrote these words?
"Permit me to Issue and Control the Money of a Nation,
And I care Not who Makes its Laws."
Mayer Amschel Rothschild (Bauer) (1743-1812),
Patriarch of the Rothschild International Banking Dynasty
Was it an act of G-d’s will that Sir Moses Haim
Montefiore though a non-observant Jews was converted
to the ways of his forefathers and became a passionate defender
of the biblical right of the Jews to return and reclaim the
Land of Israel as a Holy Land for the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
Was it by the Divine Intent that Montefiore was
so instrumental, as a friend of Queen Victoria and an agent of
the British
Rothschilds in becoming G-d’s agent in securing vast
acreages of land in Galilee for farming? It was he who became
so influential in the negotiations for the Islamic furma
(permit) to rebuild the ruins of the ancient Churvah Synagogue,
and assist in preparing the Land of Israel for the great return
of the Jews of the House of Judah after the Holocaust for their
final aliyah beginning in the years of 1947-1948?
Sir Arthur James Balfour, 1st Lord of Balfour
Even at the death of this remarkable Queen of England in 1901, the guiding hand of the G-d of Israel raised another benefactor from the land of the Tribe of Ephraim, Sir Arthur James Balfour, 1st Lord of Balfour, the 1st Lord of the Treasury before the Queen in Council. He became the British Conservative Prime Minister between the years of 1902-1905 and then as the Foreign Minister of Great Britain he authored the remarkable document called the Balfour Agreement of 1917 on November 2, 1917 announcing the formal policy of the British government in letter to Baron Walter Rothschild, the 2nd Baron Rothschild, as leader of the British Jewish community as a statement of the “sympathy of Jewish-Zionist aspiration” with these words:
The Balfour Declaration of 1917 - "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
While the Christian Israelite denominations, predominately “Protest-ant” believers that were Lost Tribers of the House of Israel in Northern Europe and America, were trying to de-legitimize their apostate Roman Christian roots and return to a biblical awareness that they were to be expecting the literal return of the Jewish Messiah, the Jews on the other hand had to grapple with the prophetic concepts that the “Land” was sacred and the restoration of the “Land” would lead to the full restoration and redemption of the whole House of Israel.
Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (The Vilna Gaon) – 1720-1797
It
was in the year of 1720 that a young prodigy and genius was born. The
Gaon (Hebrew for “genius”), Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo
Zalman was to become the most influential Jewish leader
in modern history. He would be known as the most renowned
Ashkenazi Torah authority in the past thousand years. His vast skills in memorization,
his extraordinary talents, great wisdom and his comprehension of all
branches of Torah and secular knowledge were early
recognized.
Authentic Picture of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman
By the age of seven, he gave his first public discourse on the Torah demonstrating an intellect that was fully developed to abstract thinking as an adult. By the age of ten years, his wisdom in the understanding of the Torah was so renowned for he no longer could find a teacher with the command of the Torah as he. Known as “The Gra”, this prodigious Torah giant set the standard of Torah study, absolute devotion to G-d and a character perfection emulated by centuries of later students of his manuscripts and books.
According to the enlightening article in the Jewish Virtual Library called the “Vilna Gaon – Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna” we read that at a very young age, the young rabbi went into a self-imposed “galus” or exile where he wandered from community to community as a beggar and sage. For forty years, he studied in isolation.
To the Gaon, the Torah was paramount and primary to all other studies. According to the Gaon’s son’s testimony, his father did not sleep more than two hours in a twenty four hour period for over fifty years. His memory and biblical knowledge was legendary, for he had no peers equal among the sages for the breadth for this knowledge included both revealed and hidden Torah knowledge. Yet he was also knowledgeable in secular sciences including authoring books on grammar and mathematics. His yeshiva, (academy of Torah study) was the premier yeshiva of the world for over 100 years and recognized as the model of all subsequent seminaries of Torah studies.
After forty years of studying in isolation, he finally settled in the town of Vilna. Living a quiet life, his fame as a Tzaddik (righteous man) and Torah scholar soon spread all over the land. In spite of a life of poverty, he gave 20% of all his income to charity and even would limit his own personal needs so he could marry an orphan girl or redeem a captive. Though in constant study, his ear was also kept to the needs of the local population. He began a local yeshiva, accepting students from the renown Torah scholars of that ere and from the writings of these students, scholars today are given a glimpse of the rare breadth of intellect that the Gra upheld.
The Shabbatean Heresy of Shabbatai Tzevi
At the age of
35
he was approached by one of the leading sages of that time, Rabbi
Yonason Eybeschutz,
to act as an intermediary in the conflict between him and another
great sage, Rabbi Yakov Emden. Out of the 17th
century call
that
a new messianic era had risen in Jewish history in the year of
1666,
Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi with his prophet,
Nathan of Gaza, the Jewish community in Europe was devastated
by a messianic awakening that heralded the premise that in the days
of the Messiah had come.
According to Shabbatean scholar Rabbi Marvin Antelman, Chief Justice of the American Jewish Supreme Court, the Shabbatean Jews believed “that which was good would now be profane, and that which was profane, would now become the life they would live in the era of the messiah.
Lithuania and its Capital, Vilinius, the home of the Vilan Gaon
Rabbi Antelman – “Through all of this, Shabbatai continued to issue proclamations of the theological changes wrought by the coming of the messianic age. Shabbatai's new prayer was, "Praised be He who permits the forbidden." Since all things would be permitted in the age of the messiah, Shabbatai declared many of the old restrictions of the Torah no longer applicable. He abolished the laws concerning sexual relationships. He eventually declared that all of the thirty six major biblical sins were now permitted and instructed some of his followers that it was their duty to perform such sins in order to hasten the Redemption.” (Rabbi Marvin Antelman – To Eliminate the Opiate, page 101)
This Sabbatean crisis was devastating to the Jewish people. It so happened that while embroiled in this continental conflict that was on the verge of destroying Continental Orthodox Ashkenazi European Jewry, Rabbi Emden turned back to Jewish history and studied all the prior Jewish messianic uprising. To his surprise, he found only one messianic revival in which he truly said was led by a Torah giant, who lived his life above and beyond the letter of the law. That Jewish rabbi was Yahshua HaNotzri (Jesus the Nazarene). In the midst of this epic struggle, Rabbi Emden wrote a letter to the Council of Four Lands in Poland in the year of 1757 called the Seder Olam Rabbah Vezuta. In this letter, as documented in the article titled, “Rabbi Jacob Emden meets Jesus the Nazarene”, he wrote about the Messiah called the Nazarene:
Rabbi Jacob Emden – “Certainly, therefore, there is no doubt that one who seeks truth will agree with our thesis, that the Nazarene and his Apostles never meant to abolish the Torah of Moses from one who was born a Jew. Likewise did Paul write in his letter to the Corinthians (I Corinthians) that each should adhere to the faith in which each was called? They therefore acted in accordance with the Torah by forbidding circumcision to gentiles, according to the Halakha, as it is forbidden to one who does not accept the yoke of the commandments.
They knew that it would be too difficult for the Gentiles to observe the Torah of Moses. They therefore forbade them to circumcise, and it would suffice that they observe the Seven Noahide Commandments, as commanded upon them through the Halakha from Moses at Sinai.
It is therefore a habitual saying of mine (not as a hypocritical flatterer, G-d forbid, for I am of the faithful believers of Israel, and I know well that the remnant of Israel will not speak falsehood, nor will their mouths contain a deceitful tongue) that the Nazarene brought about a double kindness in the world. On the one hand, he strengthened the Torah of Moses majestically, as mentioned earlier, and not one of our Sages spoke out more emphatically concerning the immutability of the Torah. And on the other hand, he did much good for the Gentiles (providing they do not turn about his intent as they please, as some foolish ones have done because they did not fully understand the intent of the authors of the Gospels.)”
The Largest City and Capital of Lithuania, Vilnius
In the conflict with Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz, BibleSearcher Reflections picked up this research with the first of four articles, titled, “Jesus the Pharisee from the School of Beit Hillel in the eyes of Talmudic Scholar Rabbi Jacob Emden”.
BibleSearchers Reflections – “Rabbi Emden, though he was recognized as one of the most eminent Talmudic scholars of his age, his rapport with his rabbinic contemporaries was always rocky. He was a prolific writer and quarreled on the printed page with all of his rabbinic colleagues. Yet in spite of this, his role in the Polish and German rabbinic community would be pivotal in the preservation of the orthodox community from the messianic heresies of the Shabbateans.
The most controversial part of Rabbi Emden’s life was his frontal attack on the adherents and on those he suspected of being secret supporters of Shabbatai Zevi. The most celebrated controversy Emden had was with Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz, the Dayan (Judge) of the Rabbinic Court in Prague, today in the Czech Republic. Rabbi Eybeschutz was not a person without controversy himself.
He moved in and out of European society where he
openly courted the Catholic priests and other social
intelligentsia, especially having a close relationship with the 
Catholic Cardinal
Hassebauer. It was this relationship that he was given permission to print the
Talmud with one proviso; all passages that were seen as contradictions
to Christian theology had to be removed from the printed Talmud.
Anger erupted all over Prague.
Torah and Talmudist Scholar, Rabbi Yaakov Emden
Rabbi Emden had Rabbi Eybeschutz in his critical sight. It was his contention and suspicion that some of the amulets that were sanctioned by Rabbi Eybeschutz had allusions to the support of the messianic claims of the false messiah Shabbatai Zevi. As such, when Rabbi Eybeschutz moved to Altona in 1751 to the rabbinic post that Emden’s father once held, he began a campaign in his synagogue that Eybeschutz was a Shabbatean heretic and deserved to be excommunicated.
The problem was that most of the rabbis in Poland, Bohemia and Moravia plus all of the Jewish leadership in the local region of the Three Communities were supporters of Rabbi Eybeschutz. Their contention was that Rabbi Emden was soured over not receiving the rabbinic nod from the local leaders in Altona plus the conflicts and controversy that his father had in the same region. The rabbinic supporters also noted that it was Rabbi Eybeschutz that in 1725 voted with the other Prague rabbis to excommunicate the Shabbatean sect in their city. Of course others suggested that their vote was only a cover-up to protect the Shabbatean leanings of Rabbi Eybeschutz.
What is now known, the lone mission of Rabbi Emden finally prevailed. This became one of the most controversial events in Jewish history, a Shabbatean controversy between Rabbis Emden and Eybeschutz called the “Emden- Eybeschutz Shabbatean Controversy.” It also involved the famed authority in Jewish Law (halakha), Rabbi Yechezkel Landau, the Rabbinic judge (dayan) at Brody (1734) and later the Rabbi of Jampol (1745) who mediated between Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschutz. This controversy also sought to involve the Vilna Gaon, one of the most esteemed Talmudic scholars of all times.
On the 20th of Sivan, 1756, Rabbi Eybeschutz was formally excommunicated by the Committee from the Four Lands on the grounds that he was a seducer of Shabbatean heresy. He was formally called a “Bicur Satan” (first born of Satan) and all his literature was banned. Four years later, several of his students or disciples in Eybeschutz’s yeshivah were discovered to be writing supporting articles of the Shabbateans. His son, Wolf, proclaimed himself to be a Shabbatean prophet and the yeshivah (rabbinic school) was permanently closed.
Yet the costs were high. The controversy was so inflamed that in 1751 the rabbinic council condemned Rabbi Emden. The Jews in the area were forbidden to attend his synagogue under pains of excommunication. He was forbidden to use his press, which he refused as he did have the king’s charter. As such, he was persecuted and fearing for his life, he fled from Altona and sought refuge back in Amsterdam on May, 1751. This move occurred only months before his antagonist, Rabbi Eybeschutz was formally excommunicated.
The controversy spilled over into 1752 when the court of Frederick V of Denmark issued a judgment on June 3, 1752 in favor of Emden. The court censured and fined the Council of the Three Communities one hundred thalers. Rabbi Emden was restored to his synagogue yet his enemies continued to persecute him. One Friday, after the eve of the Shabbat on July 8, 1755, his house was entered by force and papers seized which were turned over to the authorities at the "Ober-Präsident," Von Kwalen. Once again, six months later and three scholars on the commission, they rested their case; there was no evidence to indict Rabbi Emden.”
The Gra did not become involved in the epic struggle for the soul of Judaism, but his life and study went beyond. What was not known was that the “Gra” was principally engaged in the study of the Guela, that future era called the “time of the end” which in Jewish apocalyptic history is called the “days of Redemption”. It was the Jewish sages’ consensus that according to the understanding of the prophetic cycles, that this era would eventually restore the Jewish people into the new messianic era called the “world to come”. He knew fully well, for he was also a master of the hidden secrets of the Jewish Kabbalah and by the true understanding of the archetypes of the divine, that the understanding of the World of the Divine would bring a messianic awakening that would sweep the world to the end of the ages. Yet, this same knowledge if corrupted would, like Shabbatai Tzevi’s Messianism, twist and corrupt the understanding of the Torah and the Jewish Kabbalah and turn the Jewish people against the revelation of G-d in the Torah and thereby against the G-d of the Torah.
Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri – “The Messiah has Come”
In the year of 2005, one of the giants of Judah, the Sephardic Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri at the esteemed age between 104-116 years of age was sitting and praying in his yeshiva class on the Great Day of Judgment, Yom Kippur 2005, when the Rebbe surprised his students with an important revelation concerning the arrival of the Messiah son of Joseph (Maschiach ben Yosef). Known to be one of the most knowledgeable students of the Vilna Gaon, his calculations on the final redemption as learned from the writings of Rabbi Yaakov of Vilna, his revelation riveted the Jewish world. Reported on BibleSearchers Reflections in February 2006 in an article titled, “The Messiah will be Revealed Soon”, in the subtitled segment titled, “Who is Orthodox Rebbe Yitzhak Kaduri”, the following:
BibleSearchers Reflections – “It was on Yom Kippur, the students of Rabbi Kaduri were sitting in his class at his Jerusalem Nachalat Yitzhak Yeshiva Seminary in the Bucharim neighborhood of Jerusalem for the afternoon Mincha prayer. The Kabbalist scholar surprised his students and those that were worshipping with them with additional “secrets relating to the coming of the Mashiach.”
Estimated to be between 104 to 116 years of age, this Sephardic rabbinic sage sat with his head bowed for over forty five minutes in a deep mystical concentration between the Mincha (afternoon) and Ma’ariv (evening) prayers. The students and attendants were beginning to get concerned fearing for the Rabbi who covered his eyes as though he were reciting the Sh’ma prayer but they could not hear but only see his lips moving. Fearing a seizure or some sort of a neurological attack they tried to communicate with him but the visionary depth of concentration could not be broken.
When he raised his head and looked around the room at his students and other worshippers, he gave a broad smile to them. This beam of delight was a signal to his disciples that he had received a revelation. In Hebrew he spoke, 'Hit'abra bezrat hashem nishmat mashiach b'adam m'yisrael'.
Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri - "With the help of G- d, the soul of the Mashiach has attached itself to a person in Israel"
The attendees were heard murmuring in the surrounding room as the elder rabbi spoke. It was then repeated for those who could not hear him. For years, this esteemed Sephardi Kabbalist sage had instructed his students concerning the Final Redemption. The prophetic insight from Kaduri’s teachings comes from the calculations of the Vilna Gaon and his views concerning the final redemption which appear in the Gaon's writings. These writings are considered by Jewish rabbis to be cryptic and very difficult to decipher.
According to the writings of the Vilna Gaon, a “Sign of the Gog and Magog War” began when the American War on Terror against Afghanistan broke out on the Jewish holiday of Hoshana Rabba (the 7th day of the Sukkot holiday), just after the conclusion of the 7th or shemittah agricultural sabbatical year.
This was the same Rebbe who prophesied on September 24, 2001, thirteen days after 911 that the Gog-Magog War would begin on the 7th Day of Succot with these following words:
Yehoshua Meiri on Rabbi Kaduri - "On Hashanah Rabba, the actual war of Gog and Magog will commence and will last for some seven years."
Exactly thirteen days after Yehoshua Meiri’s revelation of Rabbi Kaduri’s words in National Israeli News, and twenty six days after his prophesy was first spoken, BibleSearchers reported:
Thirteen days later (broadcasted on September 24, 2001) on October 7, the celebrations of the Jewish holiday Hoshana Rabba, the 7th day of Succot, began. Precise to the minute as the sun was setting in the western horizon, the eve of the festival day began, the US and British forces began an aerial bombing campaign against the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan and the War against Terror was begun.
On Rosh Hashanah on September, 2001, that day, the sabbatical year of seven years called “shemittah”z of the Jewish years 5743-5761 (1994-2001) were based on the Hebrew agrarian economy ended at Rosh Hashanah in the Jewish year of 5761 (2001). On that day, a Jewish new sabbatical year cycle began. It will end on Rosh Hashanah, 2008)
On Rosh Hashana 2008, the handwriting on the walls of the American Stock Exchange by the finger of the L-rd wrote the number 777, the number of G-d, as the United States Congress rejected the first TARP bailout that would effectively put the United States economy under fascist control of a soon to arrive “New World Order”. The judgment of the G-d of Israel flipped the world’s economy upside down
Vilna Gaon – “Redemption is a Gradual Process (Beitah)”
According to the Vilna Gaon, the Guela was not a “one-time event” but rather a “gradual process”. In the timeline of the pre-Messianic era, called the ikvata d’Meshicha, today we are standing of the edge or threshold of the era of the “Maschiah ben Yosef” (Messiah son of Joseph). The process of Redemption at the time of the end would become like all other redemptions and restorations in the past, in the days of Koresh (Cyrus the Great), when the Second Temple was rebuilt after the Jews moved back (aliyah) to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) and as the Jews are continuing to do today.
They settled in the Land, restoring it from its desolate state since they were exiled in 70 CE and most important, like in the days of Nehemiah, rebuilt the city of Jerusalem and the security of the city and the Land. These concepts were dramatic to any Jew looking at the time of the end almost three hundred years ago.
In the manuscript of the Vilna Gaon called the “Aderet Eliyahu” he wrote, “for the main thrust of the mitzvoth (Torah command) is dependent on the Land”. The passive approach to waiting for the miracles that would precede the coming of the Messiah was dismissed by the Gra because of the prohibitions called the “Three Vows”. They were:
Rabbi Elijah Ben Solomon, the Vilna Gaon
1. The Jews were not “to go up as a wall” like a mass immigration to the Land of Israel;
2. They were not to seek to hasten the Redemption by taking “Providence” in their own hands; and
3. They were not to rebel against the ruling nations while they were in exile.
These same prohibitions are equally applicable to Christians as Lost Tribes of the House of Israel waiting with apprehension as the apocalyptic storm is unfolding before us today. In the Gra’s commentary called “Shir HaShirim” he wrote that these three vows apply only to the building of the Beit Hamikdash (Holy Temple) for “they are sworn not to, of their own volition to go out to build the Temple, until (the Messiah) comes.”
According to the disciples of the Vilna Gaon, there was a “Divine Mission” placed upon the Gra to “discover secrets of the Torah and to accelerate the Redemption.” According to Numbers (Deverim) 25:15, it states, “A perfect and honest weight you shall have.” Since this verse is found in the sixth parashah of the Sefer Devarim (Book of Deuteronomy), the mystical understanding concerning the Books of the Torah is that they represent literal human history in the sequence of time.
· The “Story of the Creation” in the Book of Genesis (Sefer Bereishit) represents the First Millennium (4000-3000 BCE) of the world,
· The “Rest of Genesis” in the Book of Genesis represents the Second Millennium (3000-2000 BCE);
· The Book of Exodus (Sefer Shemoth) represents the Third Millennium (2000-1000 BCE);
· The Book of Leviticus (Sefer Vayikra) represents the Fourth Millennium (1000-0 BCE);
· The Book of Numbers (Sefer Bamidbar) represents the Fifth Millennium (0-1000 CE); and
· The Book of Deuteronomy (Sefer Devarim) the Sixth Millennium (1000-2000CE).
In the Sixth Millennium, represented by the Book of Deuteronomy (Sefer Devarim), is represented by ten Parshiyots (Weekly Torah Readings) one parashah for each century of the millennium. Each of these Ten Parshiyots represents a sequential century.
The First Century of the Sixth Millennium is represented by two Parshiyots, Netzavim and Vayelech counted as one, or the First Century of the Sixth Millennium (1000-1099 CE). In the parashah representing the Seventh Century of the Sixth Millennium, the words stand out, “Ki tavo el haARetz” meaning “When you shall come to the Land”.
So in the Jewish calendar year, 5600, was to become a pivotal century, beginning in the year of 1840 (Jewish year of 5600) when the process of the kibbutz hagaluyot (ingathering of the exiles) were to begin. The process of Redemption would begin in its “appointed time” as a deterministic path designed by the Almighty One of Israel called “beitah” to begin unfolding. Here was the divine mission of the Gra, for according to his disciples, he was “a spark of Maschiah ben Yosef”.
Let us take a breath
of air
and assimilate the meaning of these words. The year of
1840 was
a pivotal year in reference to the Damascus Affair as noted by BibleSearchers
Reflection’s article in 2005. The secret of the G-d’s
unfolding of the time of the end was coming as the Tribes of
Ephraim and Manasseh who had settled in Great Britain and the United
States were coming to a new reality. As the Gra, the Vilna Gaon,
was opening up the gates of redemption for the Jewish people,
the gates of Jerusalem were beginning to open up for both
the House of Judah and the Lost Tribes of the House
of Israel.
At this same time, the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, were grappling with “Two Great Awakenings”. The First Great Awakening would come in the prime years of the Vilna Gaon between the years of 1730-1770 and the Second Great Awakening would arrive in the Eastern Seaboard of America and the British Isles as the “Great Aliyah” was beginning with the arrival of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon in 1808-1810.
In the year of 1830 (Jewish year 5591), Rabbi Yisrael Mishklov traveled to the deserts of Yemen seeking to find the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel. He was hoping to discover that the institution of the Sanhedrin had been preserved by ordination (simichah) of sages by the Lost Tribes of Israel that had continued non-interrupted since the days of Moses. It was his hope that in discovering this lost Sanhedrin that through these ordained sages the Sanhedrin could be restored in the Land of Israel by acts of “et’aruta deletata” (an initial awakening from below).
The Vilna Gaon never was permitted, like Moses (Moshe Rabbeinu), to enter the Land of Israel and settle in the Promised Land. He tried, but for unknown reason was unable to complete the trip. He even, during this time, wrote to his wife, during these anticipated years of separation how to educate the children, a letter which has become a Jewish classic.
It is also of interest that the Gaon, like Rabbi Jacob Emden, was an opponent of the Chassidic (Hasidic) Movement called the Chassidus, the movement started by Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov about the decade of the 1730s. They were involved in mysticism and fervent worship in the same era of Rabbi Yakov ben Judah Leib Frankovich (Rabbi Jacob Frank) the successor of false messiah Shabbatai Tzevi who sent tens of thousands of Jews in Europe on a journey disappearing into Jesuit Catholicism, many to their lasting destruction. The concerns of the Gra and Emden were that the lure of mysticism and fervent worship would detract from the intense focus needed in Torah education, which it did. Many were caught up in the emotional ties of worship and ecstasy for soon would come another challenge to Judaism.
On the heels of the “Frankists”, the disciples of Rabbi Jacob Frank, and the anti-Torah messianic movement of the Shabbateans that were now allied with the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati founded by the Jesuit Jew Adam Weishaupt, came the anti-religious Haskalah Movement or Jewish Enlightenment of 1800. But the Gaon would have passed his earthly abode for in 1797, he left his legacy and soon his disciples would begin a literal movement that the Jewish people had been praying for millenniums, “Next year in Jerusalem”.
1808 - The Great Aliyah of the Disciples of the Vilna Gaon
1700 – The Aborted Aliyah of the Ashkenazi Jews with Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid
In the year of 2010, a new landmark will be completed
in the city of Jerusalem – the resurrection and replica of
the 1864 Old Churvah
Synagogue in the central area of Jewish Quarter of the
Old City of Jerusalem. Yet, the story of its completion
is also a story of the G-d of Israel preparing His chosen
ones, the Jews, to begin their great aliyah to Israel. This
synagogue is now a fact of history that started 200 years ago, in 1808 CE,
continuing and not completed through the rise of the State of Israel in 1948
to this very day.
Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna (Vilna Gaon)
The date was October 14, 1700, the city was Jerusalem. A group of 511 Ashkenazi Jews arrived in the Holy City led by a Polish mystic, Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid. History would record that this was the first of the Chassidim Jews to live in Jerusalem. Making long term planning, they sent their money in advance to build living quarters and a “shul” (house of study and prayer) to be already prepared prior to their arrival. Three days after their arrival, their beloved rabbi died.
The high goals and aspirations of the Ashkenazi community were crushed. They continued to build their homes and plan to build a synagogue. The bribes demanded by the Ottoman authorities had taken their toll. Permission was first refused to build in the courtyard next to the Ramban Synagogue. The pasha had to be paid 1,500 lion thalers over three years, then to satisfy a dispute over the height of the building another pasha had to be paid 500 lion thalers and finally to appease the new pasha from Constantinople who arrived, another 500 thalers was paid. To finance the exorbitant bribes, the Jewish community was forced to borrow large sums from the Turks at high rates of interest. As written by Rabbi Gedaliah:
Rabbi Gedaliah – “Our
debts press like a heavy yoke on our necks. We are continually taken
into custody and before one debtor can be redeemed, another has already
been detained. One scarcely dares to go out in the street, where, to
cap it all, the tax collectors lie in wait like wolves and
lions to devour us.” (Wikipedia, Hurva Synagogue)
The Ramban Synagogue entrance from the Courtyard, the oldest active synagogue in Old City of Jerusalem founded by Nahmanides (Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman called “The Ramban”) in 1267 CE – Photo by Robert Mock
The pressures upon the Jewish community were overwhelming. Funds were solicited from Jewish communities in Europe for repayment of the loads. Yet, the loans had not been paid off twenty years later in the year of 1721. Suddenly one night in the darkness of the night the Turkish lenders set the synagogue on fire and the Ashkenazi Jewish community was expelled from Jerusalem until the debt was paid in full. For another 89 years there was no Ashkenazi Jewish presence in Jerusalem that had been there since the 13th century.
The
courtyard of the Shul was transformed into commercial shops. The
synagogue was destroyed and remained in ruins, and remained
ruined on the same site since the days of the Jewish sage,
Rabbi Judah
ha-Nasi, hence its name, the Churvah (Hebrew for “ruins”) Synagogue.
Thereafter this area was called the “Ruins of Rabbi Judah the
Pious”. This site would later be rebuilt by Lithuanian
disciples of the Vilna Gaon and was called by the people the Hurva Synagogue.
What was known, the Hurva Synagogue was not the first synagogue to
have been built on this location in Jerusalem.
The world was aflame with war as the French Revolution engulfed the lands of the Lost Tribes of Israel in Europe all the way to the Middle East with Napoleon’s expedition to the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) by the year of 1799. The disciples of the esteemed medieval Talmudic sage in Europe called the Gra, who were trained to be watchful for the signs of the time of the end and the coming redemption (guela), interpreted the entrance of Napoleon into the Promised Land as a divine sign and the proof of the historical verity that apocalyptic changes were beginning to take place on this planet earth. These disciples were called the Perushim, or by others, the ones who were known as the Separatists.
According to Arie Morgenstern, in his article, Two Hundred Years in Eretz Yisrael: The Seminal Aliyah of the Talmidei HaGra (1808-1810)” posted in the Jewish Action Online, stated that the Vilna Gaon believed that he had a divine mission to “advance the Redemption” and thereby thus strengthened, his talmidim began the preparation for a massive aliyah of European Jews to return to the Land of Israel.
Between the years of 1808 to 1810, 511 disciples
of the Gra moved to Israel with their families in three massive waves
of immigrants. First they settled in the region of the Sea of
Galilee and Safed.
The City of Safed in the 19th century
Here in the region that was allotted as the portion for the Tribe of Naphtali the Perushim felt was to be their earthly paradise. And paradise it was, for Naphtali’s portion was between the coast line of Asher in the region of Upper Jordan. Here was a well watered region around the springs of the Jordan River called Canias. This included the whole western coastline of the Sea of Galilee and Lake Merom. Today this land is called Belad Besharah or the “Land of Good Tidings” where the climate in the valley was tropical and suited for tropical vegetation where fruits in abundance grew early in the season and its forests and vegetation were luxuriant and recognized as the finest in the Land of Israel. Here resided the largest town, Safed, on Mount Naphtali that was spoken in ancient times as the “city set on a hill”.
Today with about 30,000 citizens, the city of Safed is built like a horseshoe wrapped around an ancient Templar fortress called Castle Hill facing the north. To the west rising over 4,000 feet is the largest hill in Northern Israel called Jebel Jermuk lying beyond the gorge called the Wady Leimun.
According to the Targums, “Nathtali is a swift
messenger, like a hind that runneth on the mountains, bringing
good tidings.” (Targum Yonatan, Mereishit
49:21) One of the favorite sons of the Patriarch Jacob,
Naphtali became the messenger for the Israelite tribes and
would carry out his mission with great dispatch. (Midrash HaGadol, Bereishit 49:21)
The City of Safed, that was “set on a Hill”.
Yet, in the land of the exiled tribes of Naphtali and Zebulon, where the darkness of captivity and loss of identity put them in spiritual darkness, the light of the divine arrived first in the ministry of the Rabbi Yahshua ben Yosef (Rabbi Jesus son of Joseph) who claimed his mission was to “Find the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel.” Here He lived and spent most of His ministry near the Lake called Gennesaret and the cities of Bethsaida, Capernaum and Chorazin.
As the
Perushim arrived in the Land of Israel, we are interested to
note that here was not a group of immigrants that were fleeing
persecution and pogroms in Europe. They were drawn to this land,
because they came with a messianic fervor believing that the days
were ripe for the coming of the Messiah. Many of Lithuania’s wealthy
Jewish families including and highly respected and educated Jews
were participants in this aliyah. With historical insight, according
to Arie Morgenstern, the seminal article, “Two Hundred
Years in Eretz Yisrael: the Seminal Aliyah of the Talmidei HeGra (1808-1810),
we read:
The Sea of Galilee view from the Israeli city of Safed
Arie Morgenstern – “Their aliyah was a part of a Messianic revival that took place among the Jewish people in the early nineteenth century. But unlike the thousands of other Jews who had left the lands of the Ottoman Empire for Eretz Yisrael at that time to await the coming of Mashiach, whom they expected to arrive suddenly and by miraculous means in 1840, the Gra’s disciples clung to the view that the Geulah was a historical process that should be advanced by human action.”
The City of Safed no doubt was a favorite resting place for the Perushim for here was the last home of the famous Jewish mystics and kabbalists who came in great numbers eastward after 1492 when they were expelled from Spain while Columbus, also a kabbalist Jew, “sailed the ocean blue” to the west.
Of all
the mystics, Rabbi Isaac Luria was the most famous and here he lived
the last three years of his life in Israel’s highest (altitude –
2,790 feet) and coldest city. No doubt due to Luria’s
fame, a town virtually known in antiquity and in the medieval
period, did not become a center of Jewish life until the year of 1569,
when Rabbi
Luria, known as “Ha’Ari”, arrived in Israel from Egypt.
The Tomb of Rabbi Isaac Luria in the City of Safed
Yet, Rabbi Luria was not the only Jewish sage to live in this region. In the Village of Meron nearby, up the Mount of Meron (alt. 4,000 feet) Jewish pilgrims hike to the tombs of Rabbi bar Yochai and his son, Eleazer. According to the traditions of the Jews, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai hid in a cave nearby to the Druze village of Pekia and there he wrote the Zohar, believing that every word and line of the Torah had a higher spiritual and mystical meaning.
These writings were compiled and the main part written later by Rabbi Moses de Leon in 12th century Spain. Four hundred years later the Jewish population continued to dwindle as Arab violence led many Jews to evacuate the city. In 1948 the British withdrew from Palestine and the Citadel of Safed was turned over to the Arabs. Only with the Israeli resistance forces of the Haganah assisting the Jewish residents was the city able to be spared and kept as a part of the new Jewish home in the State of Israel.
Rabbi
Yisrael Mishklov was the last disciple of the Vilna Gaon.
He stayed by the side of his master in the last few months of
the Gra’s life, and in the year of 1810 settled in the 
region
of Safed (Tzfat). He soon left to return back to Europe
to raise money in Lithuania, Poland and Russia for the settlers
in the Land. Soon after returning back to Israel in the year of 1813,
a plague broke out in Israel and took the lives
of his wife, daughters, sons, and son-in-law. As recorded by Arie
Morgenstern from the writings of Rabbi Yisrael Mishklov in the “Pe’at HaShulchan”
about the aliyah. He described this experience;
The 400 year old Torah Scroll in the Caro Synagogue in Safed
Rabbi Yisrael Mishklov - “as lying in the middle of a sea in the aforementioned blazing fire, and my friends and neighbors removed themselves from me, and I was lying on the roof, weeping, throwing myself about, and pleading before our Father in Heaven. And my daughter, the modest Marat Sheindel, tichyeh, was also of tender age and lay ill beside me. And my tears were upon my cheeks, my eyes poured out water over all that had come upon me, and my sorrow was great.”
There he vowed to the Almighty that if he and his daughter would survive, he would write a book (sefer) on the “laws that apply to the Land of Israel” (halachot hataluyot ba’Aretz), as seen through the eyes of the Vilna Gaon. Meanwhile down in Jerusalem, a similar experience was occurring. It was the belief of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Mishklov that the plague was a punishment to the olim (those who made aliyah and moved to the Land of Israel) because they had settled in Safed and not settled in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Mishklov in Safed, the ancient mystical city of Jewish kabbalists in Northern Galilee began the process of rebuilding this ancient city of Jewish mysticism for one purpose, to advance the guela (redemption of Israel on earth) by reviving the true semichah (ordination) and the Great Sanhedrin that began with Moses Rabbeinu and destroyed after the destruction of Herod’s temple in 70 CE. In the meantime the disciples of the Vilna Gaon that settled in Jerusalem, sought to hasten the days of redemption by returning to the Land of Israel, settle in the Land, restore the Land from its current desolate state and restoring it to its fruitfulness while at the same time rebuilding Jerusalem.
1830s – Settling in the Land of Israel
Then the Tamidei haGra (disciples of the Vilna Gaon) set their goal to rebuild the Chatzer HaAshkenazim, the former courtyard of Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid that was in ruins. With the continued growth of the Jewish community and the need for a larger house of worship, they sought to repair and restore the ruined structure of the Hurva Synagogue as an act of reconciliation to the Jewish community that was called “tikkun” and by rebuilding one of the ruins in Jerusalem, it became a kabbalistic symbol of rebuilding the entire city of Jerusalem which was a required precursor for the coming of the messiah. All this time they enlarged the residential neighborhoods surrounding the synagogue.
Many
of the Gra’s disciples became discouraged with the hardship of
living in Safed (Tzfas) in the land of Galilee to the north, so
the Separatists
moved to the south into Jerusalem. The first concern of the
new Jewish immigrants to Jerusalem was the need to rebuild
Jerusalem and build home for their families.
The Interior of the Churvah Synagogue (1856-1948)
In the year of 1816, they received a permit along with an official order that they were exonerated from the debt to the Arab lenders that was owed by the earlier Ashkenazy Jewish community one hundred years earlier in the days of Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid. Under the direction and leadership of the greatest of the kabbalist disciples of the Vilna Gaon, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Mishklov, the Perushim officials began to settle in Jerusalem and rebuild the city.
First they began the construction of a “Beit Midrash” (academy of Torah and Talmudic studies). There Rabbi Mishklov began to train the Separatists of Jerusalem, for he was one of the most renowned educators and earlier was responsible for the publication of the books by the Vilna Gaon written on Jewish Halakhah and Kabbalah before they all left Europe
Yet, for twenty years the Talmidei haGra were denied permission due to
the opposition of the Islamic Waqf and the political Ottoman authorities’
permission to rebuild the “Churvah”. The last thing the Islamic authorities
wanted was revival in the massive 
immigration
of the Ashkenazy community and therefore they sought to banish all
new immigrants. Besides, the building of a
Jewish synagogue was prohibited
under Islamic Sharia law in any place or land under Muslim
rule.
Instead of accommodations they had to bribe the local officials only to receive promises that the permits needed to rebuild the “shul” would be given, the reality of which was never given. The Muslim rulers sought to banish the settlers from the city of Jerusalem. First there came the accusations against the Perushim that they were Russian spies and so they tried to send the Jews back to Lithuania. Intense pressure was put upon the court of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire by western ambassadors in Constantinople.
Another focus of activity for the Gra’s disciples was that of the Torah commandments that applied to the Land of Israel (mitzvoth hataluyot ba’Aretz) would also hasten the Redemption. As soon as they arrived, they began to purchase cultivated agricultural land in the year of 1810, with the intention of performing these Torah commandments that applied to the Land. In the 1830s they sought to lease the land for agrarian purposes, to grow crops, set up workshops of trade and begin the engaging of a local Jewish commerce. In the year of 1839, Sir Moses Haim Montefiore arrived in the Land of Israel. It was his intent, along with the Talmidin haGra (disciples of the Vilna Gaon), to purchase 100,000 dunams of land in the north in Galilee and make a great portion of the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael) into farmlands.
By
the year of
1830 (Jewish year 5591), Rabbi Yisrael Mishklov
traveled to the deserts of Yemen seeking to find the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel
in the hopes of finding that the institution of the Sanhedrin
had been preserved by ordination (simichah) by the Lost Tribes of Israel
that was preserved from the days of Moses. He hoped that through
these ordained sages of the Lost Tribes of Israel, the Sanhedrin
in Jerusalem could be restored in the Land of Israel by acts
of “et’aruta deletata” (an initial awakening from below). But the Lost Tribes of the House
of Israel were not found and neither was the Sanhedrin.
The Lost Tribes had rather migrated up through the lands
where the former monarchial Nation of Georgia was ruled by King David
and Queen Tamar
during the era of the crusades, by one of the non-royal
Solomonic branches of the House of David and then wandered over
the Black Sea until they reached their final homelands in exile
that constitute today the Northern
Nations of Europe.
Egyptian Pasha, Muhammad Ali the Great in Cairo, Egypt (1805-1848)
When Jerusalem was annexed by the Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali of Egypt in the year of 1831, the Perushim saw this as a window of opportunity and petitioned the pasha for permission to rebuilt the Hurva Synagogue. This he was reluctant to do as it would require him to deviate from Muslim traditions and also Covenant of Omar, which forbad the repair and construction of non-Moslem houses of worship. Then, on the date of May, 1834 a devastating earthquake hit the region of Safed. Tiberius in Northern Galilee was virtually destroyed by the great earthquake and killed 2,016 Jews. This “Act of G-d” was received by the Perushim as a “sign” from G-d that it was time again to move, so most of the disciples of the Gra moved south to Jerusalem.
This time they began to purchase land in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem for the Jewish Quarters was almost full. The finger of the Lord, as it appeared to them, had destroyed Safed in order to build up the city of Jerusalem as a city of the Jews. With the devastation to the cities of Tiberius and Safed in Galilee, the Egyptian pasha’s heart was softened and he relaxed his prohibitions and allowed the Sephardic Jews to repair their existing synagogues. With this little bit of hope, they pushed for the authorization to completely rebuild the Hurva Synagogue.
In the year of 1836 (June 23, 1836) Rabbi Abrahim Shlomo
Zalman Zorref traveled to Egypt to the court of Muhammad Ali the Great to beseech the
dynamic Albanian pasha of Egypt, who was now in control of Egypt
and seeking to topple the Ottoman Empire. Muhammad Ali wanted to
gain control of Syria and the Levant, including Lebanon and Palestine.
When Rabbi
Zorref dropped the name and the support of Baron Salomon Mayer von
Rothschild in Vienna, the astute pasha’s ears were opened.
When the Jewish delegation later received support from the Austrian
and the Russian consuls, the hopes of the Egyptian pasha
rose that by giving permission to rebuilt the Jewish
synagogue in Jerusalem called the Hurva thinking that here
would be an easy way to seal a financial and political relationship
with the Rothschild Dynasty, and also seal the political
support of Austria and France.
The Egyptian pasha Muhammad Ali, at that time, wanted dearly to be recognized as a legitimate world leader in the eyes of the Western powers in Europe. The Egyptian ruler, a lover of the ancient breed of Arabian horses were reputed to be descendants from the Arabian horses of King Solomon, gave consent for the Perushim to build their own house of worship after the Jewish Perushim offered to obtain financial and political legitimacy by the Rothschild banking dynasty. So the long awaited Arabic firman arrived, Rabbi Zoref contacted Zvi Hirsch Lehren for funds that were pledged for the construction of a synagogue in Palestine to be transferred to the account dedicated for the Hurva Synagogue. Yet when the firman was examined, it did not specify explicitly that a large synagogue could be constructed.
Later in the letters and correspondence of Moses Montefiore
and the disciples of the Gra, in the year of 1849, did confirm that the construction
permit was not for a synagogue but to build dwelling places
in the area. With more negotiations, by September, 1836, the construction
permit was now in possession to build a synagogue and clearing
the land around the ruined synagogue site finally began. With the construction
permit from the pasha, the disciples of the Gra had
their “sign” from HaShem (G-d of Israel) that with the “rebuilding of Jerusalem”,
it would herald that the beginning of the Redemption (etchalta
deGeulah) was imminent.
March 1, 1811 - Leaders of the Mameluke dynasty are killed by Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali
But the effect of the Egyptian pasha overriding the local Arab rulers was equally catastrophic. The local Arab Turks were still unwilling to release the title to the land for the Ashkenazi debts for all the brides and usurious interest rates that had still not been paid. Rabbi Zoref then had to go to court to seek a legal ruling for the injunction had already been passed that cancelled the debt from the Ashkenazi Jews who also had also been exiled from Jerusalem. All the creditors were blocked, but the local Jerusalem Islamic authorities were incensed, and in spite of the anger, it cost the life of Rabbi Zoref, who was murdered a few years later.
A modest synagogue was built
with a courtyard. They named their “Beit Midrash” (House
of Torah Study) as the “Menachem Tzion” after, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Mishklov
with his association with the phrase in the prayers as Tisha
B’Av; “menachem Tzion bevinyan Yerushalayim ("Blessed be He
who consoles (menachem) Zion and rebuilds Jerusalem.")
Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali the Great
The messianic fervor continued to develop as a group of the disciples began the official process of seeking to reestablish the authentic semichah (rabbinic ordination) and the re-instituting of the Great Sanhedrin for the Jews. Both of these seminal events were necessary to occur, according to Jewish prophecy, before the process of Redemption would begin heralding the coming of the Maschiah.
In the year of 1837, a few of the Jewish Separatists began, according to the prophecies of Zechariah, to discontinue the tradition of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem during the day of Tisha B’Av at the recitation at midnight of the Tikkun Chatzot, for the redemption was now at hand. They were anxiously waiting the coming of the Maschiah ben Dovid (Messiah son of David) at a most mysterious of times when their lost tribal brothers of the House of Israel along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States during the Great Awakening in the late 1830s were also anxiously preparing for the return of Yahshua, whom they called by the Greek transliteration, the name, Jesus. Together a profound awakening would forever change both the Lost Israelites and the Jews.
The Churvah – The Jewish Synagogue by Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid
Finally in the year of 1855, Sir Moses Montefiore, one of Britains most famous Jews who was a banker-partner and stockbroker of his relatives, the Rothschilds, financier, philanthropist, one of the “12 Jew brokers of London” and the Sheriff of London, was given a “decree granting a right”, called a firman, from the Turkish Sultan to build a synagogue.
James (Yaakov) Mayer de Rothschild, Barón Rothschild (1792-1868)
This time the entire world contributed to its construction. The French Rothschilds, Baron Jacob (Yaakov) Rothschild, the Sassoons of India, the Sephardic Jews in the Middle East, the Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe, the Orthodox and Reformed Jews of America, rich and poor, all contributed for the “Synagogue for all Jews”.
Over the
next nine years
the construction of the synagogue progressed, albeit very slowly.
The magnificent and grand Neo-Byzantine style Synagogue was
finally completed in the year of 1864 and remained the largest
building in Jerusalem for the next eighty four years.
Baron Alphonse James de Rothschild (1827-1907)
In the year of 1864, the “Churvah Synagogue” was dedicated in Jerusalem. The dedication service was officiated by Baron Alphonse James de Rothschild (1827-1907) later the Regent of the Banque de France, who was the brother of Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (1845-1934) who dedicated most of his life supporting Zionism and generously sponsored the aliyah of the Jewish people to the ancient land of Roman Palestine. It was Baron Edmond who would become the most influential force in the future establishment of the State of Israel.
In
1924, the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association was organized
by the Baron through which he purchased over 125,000 acres of land associated
with setting up business ventures. Over $50 million dollars were spent
in supporting the early 19th century Jewish settlements,
yet 
as a true emancipated Jew and
philanthropist, in a 1934 letter to the League of Nations, Baron Edmond de
Rothschild wrote, “the struggle to put an end to the Wandering
Jew, could not have as its result, the creation of the Wandering
Arab.”
Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (1845-1934)
During the dedication ceremony, the synagogue was officially named “Beis Yaakov” (House of Jacob) in honor of Baron Yaakov Rothschild of France, the father of both Baron Alphonse James and his brother, Baron Edmond James de Rothschild. A special invitation was given to the British government and the British consul, James Finn arrived for the dedication festivities of the Churvah Synagogue. In his memoires he wrote of a special thanksgiving service where he was enraptured by the “beautiful chants and anthems in Hebrew”. Afterwards the invited dignitaries were treated to refreshments while entertained by musicians playing Russian and Austrian music.
The Churvah Synagogue became the landmark of Jerusalem and recognized as the most prominent and also the most beautiful synagogue in all of the Land of Israel. It became the central focal point of Jewry in Israel and around the world. Here in this august house of worship the installations of the Chief Ashkenazi rabbis of both Palestine and also Jerusalem were conducted. There on the synagogue complex was also housed the largest yeshiva (Jewish Torah seminary) in all Israel, the Etz Chaim Yeshiva.
In the year of 1866, Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, 1st Baronet, Kt (1784-1885) was privileged to travel to Israel and there he visited the synagogue that through his influence, eleven years earlier, as the Sheriff of London, and one of the most influential men in Great Britain, was granted a firman from the Sultan of Turkey, that gave the Jews a “decree granting an right” to build the Churvah Synagogue. During his visit, Sir Moses Montefiore placed a silver breastplate upon one of the Torah scrolls within the synagogue. History recorded that he again visited Israel and Jerusalem in 1875. This time over 3000 Jews formed a grand welcome party for their British Jewish benefactor.
Later
on February 3, 1901, the Israeli people in gratitude to
the British monarch, Queen Victoria, who had done so much to protect
the Jewish people, and held a special friendship with the only Jewish Prime Minister of
Britain, Benjamin Disraeli, held a memorial service for Queen
Victoria who died
of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 22, 1901 at the age of 81.
The service was held in the Churvah Synagogue
that according to the Jerusalem Chronicle was “filled to its utmost
capacity and policemen had to keep off the crowds, who vainly sought
admission, by force.”
Sir Moses Haim Montefiore (1784-1885), 1st Baronet, Kt
What was even becoming more clearer, the international relationship between the disciples of the Gra with the politicians and important civic leaders in Great Britain would become a critical factor for the future of the Jewish presence in Israel. Without these international relationships the future Jewish Yishov (Community of Jews in the Land of Israel) as a State for the Jewish people may have never occurred.
Then there occurred in the pivotal year of 1840, a conference that was held in London over the struggle of power and control over the Islamic people between the Turkish Sultan and the Egyptian pasha Muhammad Ali. The powerful pasha of Egypt wanted to bring Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) under the control of the independent state of Egypt. At the same time, the greater powers of Russia, Prussia (Germany) and Austria were pushing to create a Christian State in Israel. All of these international intrigues were shifted to the side by the hand of the Lord for it would have impeded the return of the Jewish people back to their homeland in 1948.
All people, looking for the return of the Messiah, have overarching philosophical or guiding principles by which they guide their lives and hopes for their future. So also did the Talmidei haGra (Disciples of the Vilna Gaon). To them the rebuilding of Jerusalem was the first step to the hastening of the coming Redemption.
Little did they know how long the G-d of Israel in His Divine Providence would be willing to wait until the final day of Redemption would be decreed for this planet earth. It would be 160 years later, four generations of forty years per generation, before the G-d of Israel would begin unleashing convincing evidence that we are living in the time of the end as the 21st century burst upon the world scene.
The
fact that the disciples of the Vilna Gaon felt that the gates
of heaven were flooding down upon them in a way that would hasten
a literal Redemption and herald a literal Messianic kingdom, was
led also by their messianic zeal that they were living at an “appointed time” in world
history. It stimulated the tremendous effort to begin the first
housing projects outside the wall of the Old City in Jerusalem.
The activist dream of those early Zionists saw within one generation
the rebuilding of the courtyard of Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid,
The 1864 Churvah Synagogue –1939 JNF Photo Archives
Effort stimulated more effort and in only fifty years, the Jews living in Jerusalem were transformed from a “persecuted minority” to a geopolitical position where they were now a predominate majority of Jerusalem’s city dwellers. They even were more numerous than the combined population of Islamic and Christian Arabs in the city. By the twenty first century, the Jews clearly maintained a population that was a demographic predominance in Jerusalem one hundred forty years later.
The Hurva – The Jewish Synagogue by Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid
Today, Jewish scholars like Arie Morgenstern can now look back
upon their history to the great aliyah of the disciples of the
great Jewish sage of prophetic understanding, the Vilna Gaon, and realize
the prophetic outcome, that here was an epic event in Jewish history
and the history of the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael).
1977 Commemorative Arch for the Churvah Synagogue destroyed by the Jordanians in 1948
During that period of time of one generation from 1808 to 1848, their messianic image of the future changed from concepts of abstraction through prayers and dreams into literal actuality with a vibrant community of Jews who had now “returned” and were now living in the Land of Israel.
Christian apologists of Jewish prophecy who considered the time of the end as a spiritual event in the abstract were now forced to reconsider that during the final Advent of the Messiah, if Europe and America were accepting “the Redemption of Israel” in its living reality, they would also now have to ponder the stark yet exciting and elevating reality.
The G-d
of Israel, as He promised, would resurrect His chosen people, the Jews and
later the Lost Tribes of Israel and return them as the
prime actors in the final events of Jewish prophetic apocalyptic history.
The Zionist’s dream, the hope of all Jews throughout the ages, “tomorrow
in Jerusalem”, and the reality of the establishment of a political
and religious homeland for the Jewish people could now be credited, 200 years later,
to this one seminal aliyah.
Model of the New Churvah Synagogue
How was this to happen? The disciples of the Gra, were truly religious activists who believed in the literal political ideology of their Master, the Vilna Gaon. It was they who rebuilt the courtyard of Rabbi Yehudah HaChassid, rebuilt the Churvah Synagogue, started building Jewish neighborhoods outside the city walls of Old Jerusalem and eventually planted these settlements east and west, north and south, so all the surroundings of Jerusalem were under Jewish presence.
These same
disciples began the creation of the settlements of Petach Tikvah, wrote to their friends
all around the world and began the great ingathering of money
from the Jews in the Diaspora to support the Yishuv (The Jewish
community in the Land of Israel). During this time they began to garner
the political good will and support from the gentile nations of
the west. What has been the most mysterious of secrets, the nations
that have the greatest affinity to the Land of Israel by their national
peoples were the lands governed by their own tribal brothers of the Lost
Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.
The Churvah Synagogue – “The Jewish Quarter was destroyed. No building remained unharmed, all were severely damaged. The return of the Jews to this place will be impossible.” Abdullah El-Tal, Commander of the Arab Legion, Jerusalem – Photographer John Phillips
The fragmentation and disintegration of the House of Jacob by the oppression of the royal house of Judah upon the northern ten tribes, and then in retaliation, the rebellion of the House of Northern Israel where they not only refused to be a part of the worshippers of the G-d of Israel, refused to participate in the festivals of the L-rd as one family, and refused to acknowledge the role of Judah as the judiciary or lawgiver interpreting how to live the life of Torah observance and recognize their role in the preservation of the Oracles of G-d, finally resulted in their exile and expulsion from the Land of Israel.
Yet, today, the 6000 year “fullness of the gentiles” has now been reached as of Rosh Hashanah 2009. The 6000 years of the “days of man” are now over. The “Day of the Messiah” will now begin with its final revelation over the next Sabbatical Week of Years (seven years). At that time the “appointed time” for the Messiah to be fully revealed will come with His physical return or revealing.
Even more so,
the “tikkun” or the repairing of the breaches caused by the family
feud and dissent within the House of Jacob has now begun. It
will prophetic path will lead to the full restoration of the entire
House of Jacob; included the Lost Israelites and the Jews from the entire
House of Judah. At that time, the Guela will be complete; the return
and restoration of the Whole House of Israel with the redemption,
reclamation, and restoration of all the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel
plus the entire House of Judah are still living today in “exile”
in the diaspora of the nations.
The Destruction on Batei Mahse Street, the Day after the Evacuation – May 1948
Yet the restoration of the Jews did have its costs. With their establishing a beachfront of Jewish presence when all the Arab nations in the Middle East went to war to prevent the Jewish people from permanently establishing a Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) the city of Jerusalem was lost and the Army of Jordan moved in to destroy everything that had an identity of the Jewish people.
On May 25, 1948,
in the battle for the Old City of Jerusalem, the commander of the
Jordanian Arab Legion, Major Abdullah el-Tell, sent an urgent message
to Otto Lehner of the Red Cross to warn the Jewish resistant fighters
of the Haganah that it was imperative that they abandon any military positions
in and around the Hurva Synagogue and in the surrounding
courtyard that he would be impelled to attack. The commander of the
Haganah in the Old City, Moshe Russnak ignored the warning with the
knowledge that if the Hurva Synagogue “fell”, the entire Jewish
Quarter would be lost.
“The old Ashkenazi sat cross-legged on the ground, removed from what was going on around him. All he had saved was a neatly folded prayer shawl and a thumb-worn holy book.” – Photo by John Phillip
On May 26, 1948, a second warning was given to the last Jewish defenders of Jerusalem, a 12 hour ultimatum to surrender and give up any fortifications. During this battle for the heart and soul of Judaism, an American photographer, John Phillips stayed within the city and photographed the destruction of Jerusalem and the 3rd exile of the Jewish people from the city of Jerusalem.
It was he who witnessed for all posterity when on May 27, 1948, General el-Tell sent out the order, “Get the Hurva Synagogue by noon.” The Arab sapper, Fawzi el-Kutub became the official executioner of the order by placing a 200-litre barrel against the wall of the synagogue and lit the fuse blowing a gaping hole in the side of the building.
The fight for the synagogue as the legions of Arab Legionnaires rushed into
the sacred sanctuary while the remnant of the Jewish Haganah
defenders tried to stop the invading forces. Within less than an hour,
it was all over. Three Arab fighters were neutralized while trying
to plant the Arab flag on the top of the synagogue but the four
succeeded as the flag signaled to the surrounding regions
that the last resistance in Jerusalem had now fallen. Shortly after
a huge explosion rocked the entire city, the synagogue and the yeshiva
were all reduced to rubble.
In his memoirs of the war, Jordanian Major Abdullah el-Tell left these enlightening insights to the Arab intentions and feeling of this war and the Jewish people.
Jordanian Major Abdullah el-Tell - “I saw this defeat as the greatest blow to befall the Jews, especially from the morale aspect, as they were distanced from the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarters for the first time in fifteen generations.”
Here in full truth, he revealed what his Arab comrades refuse to acknowledge today that on May 27, 1948, the Jewish presence in the Old City of Jerusalem was eliminated for the first time in over 600 years. Then he revealed first his admiration and then his disgust of the Jewish people for as animals he saw them as noted by these remarks.
Jordanian Major Abdullah el-Tell - “Are these all the soldiers? 35 defenders that killed so many of our soldiers? If I had known, I would have sent in troops with clubs.”
Nineteen years later, in
1967, when attacked again by the nations that surrounded
her, the State of Israel drove out the Jordanians, rebuilt the entire
Jewish quarters, and now have completed their physical redemption; the
restoration of the Churvah Synagogue.
“It was a strange feeling, photographing a people being displaced once again after 2000 years. In a strange, chilling manner I entered the flow of history, marching into Jerusalem with the soldiers of the Arab Legion.” – Photographer John Phillips
In 1948, there were no nations to support the Jewish people. This war was entirely for the Jewish people to defend. The British warriors fled and abandoned the region. The American government and the American Jews abandoned their cousins and brothers. The United Nations who gave her consent for a national homeland for the Jewish were not there to defend Israel, neither were there any European nations sending millions of dollars in funds for their defense.
The original settlers in the land were now at the mercy of the interlopers who in the 18th to 19th century had no use for the land yet with the Jewish national presence the Arabs rose up in wrath that they should share this land with anyone else. Rather than patriots and enlightened settlers which they truly were and so today, the nations around them are trying to call the Jews oppressors who today built an apartheid state. But the day of their true messianic expression was still to be in the future.
Since 1967, several attempts were made to restore the ambience of the ancient site of the synagogue, instead of exposing its ignoble ruins (Hurva) to the relics of thousands of other ruins. Politics and lack of national and spiritual direction prevented any of these engagements in restoration to be fulfilled.
Ten years later, in 1977, no real proposals that could gain political or public support, so a symbolic arch, 16 meter high, was built representing one of the four arches of the original synagogue that supported the monumental dome. Even so, the total height of the original synagogue was twice as high as the arch that graced the center of the Jewish Quarters for 33 years. The memory of the “Single Arch” was preserved but like the Second Temple in the days of the Jewish Persian Governors Zerubabbel and Nehemiah, it did not have the glory of the First Temple.
Finally as the world was celebrating its entry into the 21st century, and after Y2K propelled the globalist dreams of interconnection the nations and the economies of the world into the foundational matrix of the Global Village, the Israeli government decided to rebuild the ancient synagogue in its original style and glory. As stated by the Jerusalem architect, Nahum Meltzer who was commissioned to create the architectural design of the synagogue according to the 19th century design said:
Nahum
Meltzer – “Both out of respect for the historical memory of the Jewish
people and out of respect for the built-up area of the Old City,
it is fitting for us to restore the lost glory and rebuild the
Hurva Synagogue the way it was.”
The New Churvah Synagogue – Israel’s National Synagogue
The Jewish Quarter Development with the Israeli Government allocated $6.2 million (NIS 24m) for the construction but with the donation of the Ukrainian Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist, Vadim Rabinovitch, the State of Israel had only to contribute NIS 11m.
For those with “eyes that can see” must perceive that the rebuilding of the Churvah Synagogue has a certain attachment to the Jewish people as the Wailing Wall. It is symbolic of their attachment to the Divine, and its “ruins” (hurva) have an existential meaning that “we are not whole yet.” The completion of the synagogue carries also a meaning that we are now on the pathway of the final Guela, the redemption of all Israel. This pathway will lead to a new temple, a Messiah and a final era of peace in the Messiah’s Kingdom.
Is it any wonder that it was revealed on December 27, 2009, on BibleSearchers typepad, Destination Yisra’el, the blog title, “Jewish Expectation that with the Completion of the Hurva Synagogue the Construction of the Third Temple will Begin”. This expectation comes from a centuries-old rabbinical prophecy in the 18th century by the Vilna Gaon, whose disciples were so instrumental in the transformation of Jerusalem from a neglected Islamic town of minimal local and no international significance to a vibrant international 21st century Jewish city in which all the world wonders, admires, or covets.
According to the prophecy of the Gra, “the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem, which was built during his day, would be destroyed and rebuilt twice. When the Hurva Synagogue was completed for the third time, construction on the Third Temple would begin.”
As history does attest, “The Hurva Synagogue was first destroyed shortly after its initial construction when Muslims demanding the return of loans and tore it down. The synagogue was rebuilt a hundred years later and became the most important Jewish house of worship in the Holy Land, only be blown to pieces by Jordanian troops during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.”
On Monday, March 15, 2010, the Zionist State of Israel entered a new era. As the sliver of the New Moon heralded the beginning the Passover Season, the messianic call of Judaism was beginning to be heard loud and clear. The clarion call of the shofars gave a resounding and thundering blast for the day of the Messiah to be revealed was about to come. The last Sabbatical Week of years is now here before the coming of the Maschiah ben Dovid.
Message from BibleSearchers
BibleSearchers scans the world for information that has relevance on the time of the end. It is our prayer that this will allow the believers in the Almighty One of Israel to “watch and be ready”. Our readiness has nothing to do trying to halt the progression of evil on our planet earth. In our readiness, we seek to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah of Israel so that goodness and evil will be manifested in its fullest. Our preparation is a pathway of spiritual readiness for a world of peace. Our defender is the Lord of hosts. The time of the end suggests that the Eternal One of Israel’s intent is to close out this chapter of earth’s history so that the perpetrators of evil, those that seek power, greed and control, will be eliminated from this planet earth. The wars of the heavens are being played out on this planet earth and humans will live through it to testify of the might, power, justice and the love of the G-d of Israel. In a world of corruption and disinformation, we cannot always know what the historical truth is and who is promoting evil or mis-information. We cannot guarantee our sources but we will always seek to portray trends that can be validated in the Torah and the testimony of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament.
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